New Snowmass Mall transit center planning in the works again
Snowmass Town Council seeks public input on potential redevelopment
SEH/Courtesy Image
Snowmass Village Town Council decided to move forward with an approach for a Snowmass Mall Transit Center that would combine incremental improvements and a larger transit center redevelopment.
After requesting town staff conduct an engineering study on a new transit center in April, Snowmass Director of Transportation Sam Guarino and Alex Jauch, an architect at Short Elliott Hendrickson (SEH), presented designs and cost estimates during a Monday, June 17, meeting for a two-tiered transit center at the Snowmass Mall. The designs came nearly a year after a proposed transit center at the mall was shot down by the planning commission.
But as council members mulled over designs for a redevelopment of the Snowmass Mall transit depots, they agreed that working toward another transit center would jumpstart redevelopment of the mall, which could include up to 22 units of affordable housing, and address safety concerns at the Mall transit depots.
The plan also includes adding 22 free market units on the mall, according to Romero Group CEO Dwayne Romero, which owns the mall.
“I really think if a priority is to redevelop the mall, then a transit center has to be a priority,” said Council member Alyssa Shenk. “I don’t see how one goes without the other.”
The design is a two-level transit center at the current Roaring Fork Transit Authority (RFTA) depot. The top level would allow for five RFTA buses to load or stage at a time, and the bottom level would allow for eight Village Shuttles to load or stage. The project would reroute the road as it changes from Brush Creek Road to Carriage Way to allow for more room for the buses.
The project is estimated to cost about $39.3 million — the most expensive part would be to reroute the road. The entire project, including rerouting the road, would expand into parking lot six, one of the Carriage Way parking lots, which would lose about 54 parking spaces along the mall.
But for months, the Town Council has addressed a need to redevelop the transit depots at the Snowmass Mall to address safety concerns. The construction of a new transit center could also jumpstart redevelopment of the mall, which would allow for expansion and new housing developments.
As the Town Council has mulled over potential transit center designs, town staff has also introduced incremental improvements to the existing RFTA and Village Shuttle depots that would be much less costly and disruptive to mall businesses from a construction standpoint. The incremental improvements, however, would not move the Village Shuttle depot on Daly Lane up to the RFTA depot on Carriage Way, and Romero’s housing proposal at the mall requires using the parcel where the current Village Shuttle depot sits.
But Guarino suggested, and council members agreed, to move forward with the incremental improvements as a first phase of a larger transit center development.
“Staff is still recommending to move forward with incremental improvements, and those could easily be included in this design, and then we would have gotten something done in the short term,” he said. “This is a long ways away; we’re basically at the beginning, so having something completed with the incremental improvements is, we think, still the best way forward.
“If you decided to move forward with this two-level scheme, we wouldn’t have to necessarily undo those improvements,” he added.
About $6 million of funding from a 2022 transit center project that was shot down by the planning commission is still available for transit improvements, he said.
It would take about three months to make incremental improvements to the transit depots. A timeline for a larger transit center is uncertain. The Town Council asked Guarino and Jauch to look at what costs and timelines would look like for a two-phase project: the incremental improvements in the short-term and the full transit center redevelopment in the long-term. It also asked town staff to seek public input on whether there is an appetite for another transit center development.
“If we’re going to go for a new development, a two-tiered development, I want to make sure we have community buy-in,” said Mayor Bill Madsen.
The last transit center project was shot down largely because of the proposed 40-month construction timeline, which mall business owners said would have a significant impact on their businesses.
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